Do you think JK knew what would happen?

[Alyssum34456]

She's hinted her views before, but this is the most clearly outspoken she has been. The backlash has been pretty awful tbh. I'm not sure I 100% agree with everything she is saying, but I do not like how she has been treated. Why the world is acting like she has made some 'Trump-like' statement I dont know. Perhaps because being trans is the most recent trending vulnerable group to gain support and influence? So it's a very risky thing to talk about? The fact it can't even be discussed is pretty sad.

I wonder if she realised this would happen. Do you think she had higher hopes that some other admirable high profile names would come to her aid, or at least have a healthy debate? Does she know people who have let her down? Perhaps they realised last minute that it was just too risky a move here's looking at you Dan Radcliffe. I can almost see him sending her a private message "Sorry Jo, really can't do this right now! I'm too young and I need the money from my next woke gig!" Or has he really truly lost touch with her and decided to break ties? Or did she really just decide throw it out there and hope for the best?

A part of me thinks she knew it all along. She is very good at standing out from the crowd. She had had incredible lows in her life. Even if she spends the foreseeable future in a downward disgrace, she has publicly planted a seed and now the initial heat is over people are starting to talk. The BBC even has an article on the Dan Rad response and links to articles about gender critical and what this means for women. I think they are being surprisingly unbiased actually.

The future starts here?

I just hope this doesn't scar her too much.

I actually think a few people who would have at least discussed it are now holding back since they have seen the backlash.

I don't know. I just know it's the bravest thing I've ever seen. I hope she has excellent RL support.

She first was openly gender-crit because she had seen another woman being punished for speaking out. I think she knew exactly the tide of misogyny, death threats and abuse she would get, because she'd seen other women get it.

There isn't anyone more higher-profile than JKR. There's no way she wasn't going to be strung up for it by the usual wokerati.

That's a measure of the guts she has.

She is not stupid. She has taken a considered stance knowing the likely backlash. How difficult she is finding it to endure, I don’t know. But the people attacking her in this way should be taking a long hard look at themselves - it is wholly out of proportion. I admire her hugely for taking this step and wish her all the fortitude.

Even if she spends the foreseeable future in a downward disgrace
Are you serious? You know Twitter isn't real life?

@thisismytimetoshine in the sense of the public view turning on her, organisations reusing to be associated with her, any future publications etc. being cancelled, death threats on the street. Twitter alone can be deleted, I agree.

She must have known and I truly hope she doesn't give a fuck. I'm quite upset by the response, people are so vicious. I read a good piece by Kirkup in the Speccie about it. It's really "twitter as news" writ large, which may be part of my upset.

She absolutely knew. She was in the papers a couple of years ago for liking a “transphobic” tweet and she backpeddled saying she had a middle aged moment. She won’t have just forgotten that happened. She’s just had enough I guess

Well she seems to be a highly intelligent person with a huge amount of political and social awareness, so I'm pretty sure she had a fair idea. Whether she thought she might gain more support from other high profile people I don't know. But traditionally women are shit upon so she'd probably have had better luck if she was a man. She knows that too, no doubt.

Part of the issue is that Twitter is real life now. God, it's depressing. Zadie Smith said we're at thr nexus of real life and twitter and we'll see which at we go. Looks like we're going with Twitter.

Shes clearly kept an eye on matters, so will have known how vitriolic the backlash would be and probably also that not many would stand beside her. However, womens rights have always been an important topic to her, so I figure she knew what the reaction would be but had to say it anyway.

Even if she spends the foreseeable future in a downward disgrace

Oh, nonsense. The tide is turning - slowly, but it's turning. There's a lot of people who are going to be very embarrassed by their current views, not too long into the future. But even if it takes decades, there's no "disgrace" to be found in someone who has talent, money and a platform actually using those things to stand against misogyny and homophobia, as JKR has done.

*not many famous people would stand beside her (though they will agree..but refuse to say so as scared of the attacks)

She had dipped her toe in the water several times before this, felt the heat and did it anyway.
I believe she has also experienced domestic violence so I doubt whether narcissistic rage will be anything new to her.

I suspect she knew it would be bad but probably not to this extent - I think a lot of us have been stunned by the nastiness of it. It shouldn't be a surprise though. We're the species that used to watch people being executed in town squares. Human nature doesn't change that much, and a lot of people still love a good witch-burning when a woman doesn't accept the orthodoxy.
I'm in fucking awe of her bravery though.

She's not daft.

She knew, just as those of us who stay quiet also know. I'm trying to be brave but I am nowhere near as brave as JKR.

Total badass.

@Thisismytimetoshine

Even if she spends the foreseeable future in a downward disgrace Are you serious? You know Twitter isn't real life?

This exactly.

Women's Champion is the phrase you were looking for there.

Martina Navratilova weathered this storm and others will to. Perhaps instead of presenting intelligent influential women as mouthy blasphemous outliers (who must be silenced by twitter mysogyny) the press needs to do a bit more old fashioned investigative journalism with facts taking precedence over feels. I paraphrase Kirkwood!

Courage calls to courage.

I think she knew, she's a clever woman and very aware of the world around her.

I admire her hugely.

I think she knew. Good for her. We need people to stand up to this gaslighting misogynistic rubbish.

Also she ran the gauntlet previously when The Philosopher's Stone met protest from zealots in the U.S. and iir was unhappy with hindsight that she was forced to change the title. She is in a far more powerful position now (and is probably as concerned as the rest of us about the increasingly twisted reality facing our daughters).

Yep, I think she knew exactly what would happen.

Having a look at any of her Twitter posts just before the latest kick off, they were full of TRAs with their predictable misogynistic "fuck off TERF" insults.

I think she got fed up and thought if they were going to continue to hurl abuse at her, she may as well go all in and give them something to really cry about.

I wonder if she even timed it so America was on twitter and she got the full effect of the blue tick male feminist bros.

Reading her Cormoran Strike books, I’d say she is pro-trans, as there are sympathetic portraits of trans people in more than one of them. Or maybe Cormoran just works in an unusually trans-heavy bit of London.

I think she just dislikes mindless shouting.

Twitter in not real life. It is a tiny, tiny fragment of the world (less that 20%).

What is real is the way the MSM has amplified this. I think every major newspaper has now blown this up, but always in an anti woman way.

Endless comentators have been invited to write about her as some unreconstructed reactionary transphobe, and in some way more wicked because young people have admired her.*

And this isn't just once, but day after day. Not once has a paper asked or commissioned an article supporting her.

It may be that the trans lobby is more powerful at getting articles published, and gender critical groups aren't, or just dont bother.

I personally dont know why she bothers with twitter. Its like going into a seedy bar and thinking you can have an intelligent conversation with drunks.

But she must have been aware, because it has happened before, that the mainstream who provide not a running comentary, but a biased onslaught.

But maybe she just doesn't care, because now she has the wealth (that she created) that means she doesn't have to play lip service to current trends because you are worried where you next job will come from.

• What is also noticeably is that none of the articles are open for comment. This also seems to be a strategy because by and large when articles like this are open for comment in the normal world, most people just have not swallowed the trans narrative.

I do think we need things clarified legally and maybe she's rich enough to take that on.

I feel like gender identity should be legally distinct from biology and then a lot of this could be avoided. I hate even talking about this because its seen as hateful, but not everyone has a gender identity.